The invention relates to a microscope stand foot for the accommodation of an illumination device having optical components and drive units for the same. U.S. Pat. No. 5,079,578 discloses a photographic camera system in which various object lenses can be flanged onto a camera housing via a bayonet closure. For the electrical transmission of information to an end of the object lenses and to the camera housing, the bayonet closure has resiliently supported contact pins. The contact pins are allocated corresponding contacts on the object lenses.
A microscope stand foot of this type is known (which is equivalent to U.S. Pat. No. 4,733,954) from EU-0211 138 A2. By means of partitions in the same, individual accommodation chambers for optical and electronic components are formed. Thus, in the accommodation chamber of the central part, an aperture diaphragm, a field diaphragm and a deflection mirror are arranged one behind another, while the accommodation chambers in the side parts are provided for the electronic components and for the drive units of the aperture diaphragm and field diaphragm. This known microscope stand foot, because of its dust-protected and heat-dissipating construction, largely makes possible long-term operation of the microscope, which is hardly disturbed by an otherwise frequently necessary cleaning of the optical components or by focus changes because of thermal expansions. The assembly of the optical components in the central part of this microscope stand foot is, however, relatively complicated and subsequent setting operations also prove to be difficult.